Lipstick kisses cover the walls of Elvis Presley's bedroom in the Lauderdale Courts apartment complex. Elvis, Gladys and Vernon Presley lived in the apartment from September 1949 to January 1953.(Photo: Brad Vest / The Commercial Appeal)Buy Photo

Elvis Presley's pre-fame teenage bed in the Lauderdale Courts apartment complex in Memphis likely didn't see a lot of what might be called "action."

The presence of Elvis' sainted mother, Gladys, in the room across the hall would not have been an encouragement to shenanigans, if indeed the shy young Elvis ever entertained such plans.

But visitors to that room today aren't shy. The four walls that surround the 1950s-style bed in Apartment No. 328 are as patterned as a leopard's pelt, but the spots are unusual indeed: They are the red lipstick imprints of fans who have pressed their mouths to the paint and plaster of the space where the young Elvis read comic books, struggled with homework, slept and dreamed.

The discovery of these lip prints — these hieroglyphics that need no translation — surprised but didn't startle me during my overdue first visit to the preserved and retro-furnished apartment where Elvis, Gladys and Vernon Presley lived from September 1949 to January 1953 in what was the family's longest stint in a single Memphis location outside of Graceland.

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An Elvis Presley cardboard cutout is seen through a window June 15, 2017, at ASAP Bail Bonds, which used to be Poplar Tunes. Elvis, who lived nearby, bought his first record in the old record store. Brad Vest / The Commercial Appeal

June 15, 2017 - A Elvis Presley cardboard cutout is seen through a window at at ASAP Bail Bonds which used to be Poplar Tunes. Elvis Presley, who lived nearby, bought his first record in the old record store. Brad Vest/The Commercial Appeal

June 15, 2017 - Patrice Gray, manager at ASAP Bail Bonds, works at her desk inside of their location inside of the old Poplar Tunes building on Poplar Avenue. Elvis Presley, who lived nearby, bought his first record in the old record store. Brad Vest/The Commercial Appeal

June 15, 2017 - A framed picture of Elvis Presley is seen within the apartment he called home for 4 years in the Lauderdale Courts apartment complex. Elvis, Gladys and Vernon Presley lived in the apartment from September, 1949, to January, 1953. Brad Vest/The Commercial Appeal

A historic marker sign outside of the current ASAP Bail Bonds signifies that it used to be Poplar Tunes. Elvis Presley, who lived nearby, bought his first record in the old record store. Brad Vest / The Commercial Appeal

As a result of this mutant Presley brain app, developed after years of exposure to candlelight vigils, birthday celebrations and impersonator contests, I’ve discovered that I rarely can spend more than a day in a new city — whether it's Chicago or Chattanooga, Rio or Bangkok — without being alerted to evidence of Elvis.

These Presley presences can be obvious (a CD in a store bin) or unexpected (a startling street mural, a passing pedestrian's T-shirt). But whatever the source, these products, promotions and tributes testify to the evergreen accuracy of Mojo Nixon’s musical observation: Elvis is everywhere.

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Office manager Patrice Gray works at her desk June 15, 2017, at ASAP Bail Bond Co., which occupies the east side of the old Poplar Tunes building on Poplar Avenue. Elvis Presley lived nearby and shopped in the old record store.(Photo: Brad Vest / The Commercial Appeal)

Of course, in Memphis, where Presley became a superstar, homeowner, cautionary fable and tourist magnet, it is particularly easy to find the ghost of Elvis (to borrow a phrase from Marc Cohn's beloved/derided city anthem, "Walking in Memphis"). For example, a person can visit Graceland or Sun Studio, for full immersion in an Elvis experience.

But other locations require extra effort and produce a more subliminal effect.

Not far from the Presleys' Lauderdale Courts apartment (which has been conserved and restored and is available for rent, at $250 a night through the Uptown Square office) is the site of the old Poplar Tunes record store at the northwest corner of Poplar Avenue and Danny Thomas Boulevard.

"Memphis' original record store," as the historical marker on the property boasts, opened in 1946, two years before Vernon Presley relocated his family from Tupelo, Mississippi. A favorite and convenient walking-distance hangout of the boy who would be King, the store closed in 2009, by which time much of its inventory was devoted to independent label hip-hop and "gangsta" DVDs. The location became a Chinese restaurant for a while and currently is the home of the ASAP Bail Bond Co. ("We Put Your Feet Back On The Street ... ASAP!").

March 2, 2017 - A collection of Elvis Presley's jumpsuits are seen inside of the Elvis the Entertainer Career Museum at Elvis Presley's Memphis. Elvis Presley Enterprises opened the new complex that includes 200,000 square feet of new exhibits, museums and performance space behind Graceland Plaza, the longtime hub of mansion tours. (Brad Vest/The Commercial Appeal

March 2, 2017 - Elvis Presley jumpsuits on sale inside of the Elvis the Entertainer Career Museum at Elvis Presley's Memphis. Elvis Presley Enterprises opened the new complex that includes 200,000 square feet of new exhibits, museums and performance space behind Graceland Plaza, the longtime hub of mansion tours. (Brad Vest/The Commercial Appeal

March 2, 2017 - Albums adorn the wall inside of the Elvis the Entertainer Career Museum at Elvis Presley's Memphis. Elvis Presley Enterprises opened the new complex that includes 200,000 square feet of new exhibits, museums and performance space behind Graceland Plaza, the longtime hub of mansion tours. (Brad Vest/The Commercial Appeal

March 2, 2017 - Last minute work is done inside of Gladys' Diner at Elvis Presley's Memphis. Elvis Presley Enterprises opened the new complex that includes 200,000 square feet of new exhibits, museums and performance space behind Graceland Plaza, the longtime hub of mansion tours. (Brad Vest/The Commercial Appeal

The bond company occupies the east side of the old record shop. The other half remains crowded with empty buffet trays, commercial kitchen stoves, and life-size cut-outs of Elvis that seem to function as totems or would-be good luck charms.

According to office manager Patrice Gray, fans occasionally stop by to cock an ear to the ancient echoes of the Poplar Tunes turntables that enabled Elvis and other shoppers to preview new releases; however, the place is more popular with those doing business with nearby 201 Poplar (the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center) than with visitors to 185 Winchester (the street within the apartment complex where the "Presley Suite" can be found).

If a bail bond company is, generally speaking, not a place for children, another of Elvis' former haunts most certainly is. For a chunk of 1954 and '55, the Presleys rented rooms at 2414 Lamar, currently undergoing renovation to reopen as the Mother's Love Day Care Center. (In a recent previous existence, it was Nora's Little Nooks Day Care Center.)

Built along a slant on busy Lamar Avenue, the ranch house-style building is now a bright canary yellow, with the exceptions of the Mickey and Minnie Mouse figures painted on the front wall. Filled with munchkin furniture and toys in primary colors, the place makes no attempt to evoke Elvis, although pilgrims do sometimes visit, according to Christine Gibbs, a day care worker for 19 years.

From kids to teens: Head south from Lamar and you can visit one of the more well-known Elvis shrines, the Humes Preparatory Academy Middle School, less confusingly known as Humes High School when the senior billed in the program as "Elvis Prestly," a "guitarist," performed on April 9, 1953, during the school's annual "Minstrel Show" (don't worry, it was just a talent show).

Trading his guitar for a gun, Elvis Presley grew a beard and took on a dramatic role in the 1969 western, "Charro!" His acting was received by critics with moderate enthusiasm, but fans missed his singing. The movie was one of his least successful in the box office. National General Pictures

As the old song goes, "Frankie and Johnny" were lovers. In this case, picture Elvis Presley and Donna Douglas, the actress who also played Ellie Mae Clampett in the Beverly Hillbillies television show, in the love story that ends with lead flying. The movie came out in 1966. United Artists

1960s sex symbol Ursula Andress, the original Bond Girl, appeared in the 1963 Elvis Presley film Fun in Acapulco. Andress had appeared as Honey Ryder in the first James Bond film, Dr. No, a year earlier. Paramount Pictures

1967's Easy Come, Easy Go was the last film producer Hal Wallis would make with Elvis Presley. Wallis, who also produced iconic films like Casablanca, was the man who brought Elvis to Hollywood and created nine films with the first rising and later falling star. Paramount Pictures

Still in use, the school auditorium at 659 N. Manassas last year served as an appropriate audition site for actors hoping to portray Elvis on the short-lived CMT "Sun Records" series. It requires little imagination to imagine the actual Elvis in that venue, just as it's easy to conjure him onstage three miles east of Humes at the outdoor Levitt Shell, which was known as the Overton Park Shell when Presley performed there on July 30, 1954, opening for Slim Whitman.

There are many other places where residue of the Presley magic may be detected. Head north on Danny Thomas from the old Poplar Tunes site and you come to a Family Dollar Store on the corner of Thomas and Chelsea that occupies the former site of Chips Moman's American Sound Studio, where Elvis recorded arguably his greatest music of the 1960s (including such songs as "Kentucky Rain" and "Suspicious Minds"). Then head across town to East Memphis, seemingly a world away, and you'll find the recently fire-damaged ranch home at 1034 Audubon Drive that Elvis bought in 1956 with royalties from "Heartbreak Hotel" and that the Presleys occupied for 13 months before discovering that a suburban lawn was not an adequate security barrier between the singer and his fans. Currently owned by the Mike Curb Family Foundation and operated as an extension of the Curb Institute for Music at Rhodes College, the house is undergoing repairs so it can again function as a site for small-scale concerts and other events; obviously, the intention is to evoke "the ghost of Elvis," in at least a symbolic sense.

These places offer fun, even meaningful, visits for Elvis fans and others. But take it from me: You don't need to seek to find the King. Keep your eyes and ears open, and he'll come to you. Like the song said, Elvis is everywhere.